


Let Go (In Two Acts)

by stardust_made



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt Sherlock, M/M, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_made/pseuds/stardust_made
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"One of the last times Sherlock hung head down from the branch of a tree was when he was sixteen."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Go (In Two Acts)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dioscureantwins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dioscureantwins/gifts).



> For my wonderful friend dioscureantwins for her birthday.  
> Many thanks to the lovely rifleman_s for the beta.

 

One of the last times Sherlock hung head down from the branch of a tree was when he was sixteen. Years earlier Mycroft was foolish enough to tell him that a surge of blood to the brain stimulated it, so Sherlock started doing that particular acrobatic trick at every opportunity. The big tree on top of the hill had instantly become his favourite. Everyone, family members and staff alike, had already known the youngest member of the household was…special. No one even posed the question as to why at his nine years of age Sherlock would want his brain stimulated any more than it already was. Mother was the only one who had insisted that her little boy was only trying to be a little boy in his own way. Mycroft hadn’t had the heart to correct her, not then, not ever. Not even when his brother began doing things that once again made his body twist and contort, but in ways that were far from endearing. Ironically, those ‘exercises’ were designed with the exact opposite purpose from Sherlock’s childhood endeavours in brain stimulation.  
  
On the afternoon when Sherlock performed one of his last stints on the tree, both he and Mycroft had been up on the hill. The summer holidays had gathered the entire Holmes family at their residence in Surrey. Mycroft was to return to Oxford after three weeks; Sherlock was to remain at home, boarding school having finally proved to be a disaster for everyone involved. Mycroft’s list of academic reading material would have reached the bottom of the hill if he had it on a parchment and rolled it down from the top. However, he took with him a book of fiction that day—André Maurois’s _‘Climats’_ , if memory served right. At twenty-two he had already begun treating his mind as if it was a dog: he fed it well, choosing foods with varied content, he let it have full rest, he trained it to obey, and he exercised it. He took it out for a walk with no other purpose than to let it run unrestricted, to wander aimlessly and touch upon subjects merely to acquaint itself with them and acquire a basic recognition entry for his data banks. Mycroft had shown the gift of foresight from an age where all studies of genetic psychology suggested he shouldn’t have had more than a vague sense of the present. He’d realised that his mind was his greatest asset and that it fell upon him to take good care of it.  
  
On that lazy July afternoon he’d accompanied Sherlock to the top of the hill and then stretched his form on a blanket on the ground, spending the next thirty minutes pleasantly at ease with his book and his surroundings. He understood the text he was reading perfectly well, and he perceived that the sky was blue and the breeze refreshing. He was able to appreciate the scents of earth and tree bark and greenery in the air. But none of it scintillated. None of it had enough of an edge to have him attracted or distracted. Mostly because Mycroft didn’t intend to be either.  
  
He became aware of Sherlock making noises of frustration and lifted his eyes to his bat-like figure. Mycroft had chosen his spot well. From the waist down he was in full sun—he always did have poor circulation, his feet often cold, even in the summer. His head and most of his upper body were covered by patches of sunlight. Mycroft had positioned himself under the tree’s crown, a meter to the right of where Sherlock would drop if the branch broke. The angle allowed Mycroft a full view of his brother’s reddened face and upside down pout. His curls were trembling animatedly with his effort to disentangle his arms from the makeshift restriction ropes he’d fashioned out of old shirt sleeves. The Houdini act was a new thing. At least Sherlock couldn’t do it unsupervised—someone had to tie up his hands and arms once he climbed up the tree and swung his head down from a sturdy branch. Mycroft had been well aware that somehow the 'someone' always ended up being him.  
  
He had upped the difficulty of the restraints that day, on Sherlock’s insistence. As was so often the case yielding to his brother’s whims led to suffering for Mycroft—the noise and wriggling above his head quickly managed to break through his enjoyable detachment with the world.  
  
“For God’s sake,” he muttered, getting to his feet.  
  
“I don’t need your help, Mycroft,” came a sullen warning from above. No amount of irregular breathing was able to take away the low timbre of Sherlock’s voice; it had settled there for good some years ago, after a very brief passing through the breaking stage.  
  
“I’m sure you don’t,” Mycroft replied mildly. “However, I don’t wish to spend another fifteen minutes with that racket over my head.”  
  
“Go away then,” Sherlock suggested. “The grounds are big enough.”  
  
Mycroft sighed. He was facing Sherlock’s collarbone so he made it an audible sigh. “You know I can’t leave you alone here,” he said. “We’ve already had this conversation.”  
  
“I’ll be perfectly all right.” The wriggling had resumed with more vigour.  
  
“Yes, yes,” Mycroft said. “Aren’t you a bit too old to be hanging from trees anyway?”  
  
“Jealous.”  
  
Mycroft’s eyebrows rose. “I can assure you that there are very few things I desire less than to be doing what you’re doing right now.”  
  
“I don’t mean it like that.” Half of Sherlock’s words were grunts. “I mean that you…never got to…do this...in the first place.” Sherlock’s form froze for a moment; he took a deep breath and said the next sentence smoothly. “Because you were always afraid you’d break the branch.”  
  
Mycroft lifted his eyes to the skies in half-hearted exasperation.  
  
He proceeded to watch Sherlock for several seconds silently. His brother looked like an overgrown caterpillar trying to crawl backwards. Everything about him seemed overgrown these days. He had been catching up on Mycroft in height but not in weight, his thinness making him seem even taller somehow. The need of his feet to be put into shoes that fit would have left a dent in the monthly budget of a working class family. Not just shoes, everything else, too: jeans, t-shirts, jumpers. In tune with his thoughts Mycroft’s gaze was caught by the rim of Sherlock’s boxer shorts. His t-shirt had fallen down exposing a stripe of skin on his lower abdomen and right there Mycroft was clearly able to see...  
  
“Sherlock,” he admonished. “If you need new underwear you must tell mother. Or better still, go and buy it yourself. Do I need to tell you what a gross overstepping of personal boundaries it is to wear someone else’s boxer shorts?”  
  
“We’re brothers,” Sherlock panted in response, his effort to free himself uninterrupted. “We’re supposed to share.”  
  
“You should at least have asked.”  
  
“Fine. I’ll ask next time.”  
  
“There won’t be a next time. We’re going to London on Saturday to do some shopping.”  
  
“I don’t need new pants. I like yours.”  
  
Mycroft’s lips twitched of their own accord. “Well, so do I.”  
  
Instead of a reply, Sherlock’s body gave a violent lurch, followed by a throaty sound of triumph; then, as if in slow motion, Mycroft observed the branch dislodge from the back of Sherlock’s knees, slipping away from their grip. Words came to life in Mycroft’s head, loud and perfectly articulate: ‘He is going to drop on his head. He could _break his neck._ ' In a split second Mycroft managed to stop the fall by clasping Sherlock’s form tightly against himself, supporting his weight with his own.  
  
They remained stock still for a moment, shock ordering their brains to a shutdown until a full assessment of reality was completed and safety restored. Mycroft’s cheek had pressed against Sherlock’s naked stomach, his nose all but squashed in the damp smoothness of it. A peculiar, although not illogical thought occurred to him: _‘Thank God, there is one person in this family who is slim and agile, and really quite fine.’_ Then another thought, its origin unknown and its destination nebulous: _‘Sherlock is more than quite fine.’_  
  
“I’m going to lower you down,” Mycroft spoke calmly into Sherlock’s skin.  
  
“Any time today,” Sherlock rumbled from the vicinity of Mycroft’s belly.  
  
Mycroft slowly began shifting to distribute his weight more evenly. The ground was treacherous under his feet, odd bumps and small hollows ready to send him into a tumble in his unsteady stance. He managed to find a sturdy position, lips parting for puffs with the precision of the operation. Mycroft’s face kept pressing against Sherlock’s stomach; his eyes almost crossed as his gaze fell back to it, but not before he’d managed to see the forest of tiny goosebumps raised on Sherlock’s skin.  
  
His head suddenly swam with how unbearably physical the goosebumps seemed. He blew air up to his perspiring forehead and watched them multiply and sharpen in dazed harmony with the clenching of his own stomach.  
  
“Mycroft?” Sherlock’s voice floated from below. For the life of him Mycroft could not tell what was in the tone; his own name had never sounded so strange in anyone’s mouth.  
  
He came to his senses abruptly and manoeuvred Sherlock onto the ground with care. The fact that only one of Sherlock’s arms had been liberated from its constraints led to both their fingers fumbling together at the remaining knots. Soon Sherlock was free. Mycroft dropped onto the ground next to him, giddy with the unexpected exertion and the unplanned surge of adrenaline.  
  
They lay down next to each other in silence, their exhalations in discordance. In his peripheral vision Mycroft saw Sherlock turn to him.  
  
“Good knots,” Sherlock murmured.  
  
Mycroft turned to face his brother. Sherlock’s features were finally the right way up, but they defused any attempt of Mycroft’s to arrange them into familiarity. They were just as startling and odd as they’d been when Mycroft had watched them upside down, when Sherlock’s slanted eyes had seemed drooping and sad, and his upper lip, usually so unapologetic in its lushness, had made for a surprisingly modest, dainty bottom lip. Nothing had been as it should be in Sherlock’s face a moment ago. Everything was in perfect order now, but it still failed to be the way it _ought_ to be. Mycroft gazed at him, enthralled; confounded by a mystery that finally exceeded the instant reach of his mind and brought it to a halt. The only sounds he could hear were the thumping of his heart in his ears and the buzz of insects.  
  
There was a movement on Sherlock’s open face—a suppressed gulp. Mycroft averted his gaze and turned his head, looking up to the sky. Huge, white, scrumptiously shaped clouds were coming from the east.  
  
***  
  
Mycroft walked past the inconspicuous looking man outside Sherlock’s current residence suppressing once again his ingrained good manners which instinctively tried to force his head into a light nod. He’d hand-picked every member of the security staff who made sure Sherlock’s location remained a secret; all small cogs in the big scheme to keep secret the very fact that Sherlock continued to be alive.  
  
Sherlock was nowhere to be found in the house so Mycroft took the steps downstairs to the old servants’ quarters which had found a new purpose as an improvised gym. Where Sherlock was concerned that meant boxing. Sherlock ran and Sherlock boxed. On more than one occasion Mycroft had thought this was nature’s way of finding balance. Two brothers, two types of physical activities. The numbers added up; no one cared that the distribution wasn’t symmetrical.  
  
He was expecting to hear thumping, but the nearer he got the more his heartbeat began accelerating unpleasantly. No thumping; no other sounds associated with fluid, springing movement and the application of force in punching an object. There was another sound, chiefly responsible for Mycroft’s uncharacteristic lack of calm: the loud, noisy breathing of his brother.  
  
Mycroft sped up, his own breath becoming wayward.  
  
Five steps left – surveillance was on.  
  
Four steps left – both members of the security personnel had been at their posts.  
  
Three steps left – there were no traces of foreign presence in the house.  
  
Two steps left – the chance of information leaking out about Sherlock residing here was highly unlikely.  
  
One final step – the chance of Sherlock inviting someone over was actually nil.  
  
As Mycroft pushed open the heavy wooden door to the room his eyes perceived an extremely accurate visual of the conclusion at which he had just arrived: his brother had accidentally hurt himself while training.  
  
Sherlock was sitting slumped on the floor leaning on the massive chest under the window. Half the room was buried underground, and this particular window was partly obscured by vegetation, deliberately left to grow unrestricted. The scant light illuminating Sherlock’s figure still allowed for a decent assessment of the situation. He had obviously tried to throw a few punches without his boxing gloves and managed to injure both his wrists, the left one worse than the right. As in all other rare things that had Sherlock’s dedication, in self-harm his accomplishments were notable, too.  
  
At Mycroft’s entry he’d lifted his eyes towards him, his half-petulant, half-darkened expression informing Mycroft that Sherlock’s frustration with his current helplessness was an echo of the big picture of his life at the moment. The end of his mission to unravel James Moriarty’s network was slowly beginning to shimmer on the horizon. For Mycroft this was immense success. For Sherlock, the operative word was ‘slowly’.  
  
It showcased their differences rather well.  
  
“Help me get on my feet,” Sherlock said as a manner of greeting. Mycroft walked to him then stood still, hesitating.  
  
“I’ll be careful not to crease your suit,” Sherlock remarked. Mycroft wondered whether he realized just how childish he sounded sometimes.  
  
“I was merely trying to establish what would be the least painful way to do it,” he replied with distracted rebuke. “The least painful way for you, I might add.”  
  
“How kind.”  
  
“Don’t be stroppy, Sherlock. You’ve got no one else to blame for your predicament but yourself.”  
  
“You changed the liquid soap and the new one is making my skin itch. I had to take the gloves off.”  
  
It was astonishing that after all this time Mycroft continued to underestimate Sherlock’s brilliant mind’s ability to invent ways in which everything ended up being Mycroft’s fault.  
  
“Shift forward,” he told Sherlock, suppressing his own childish impulse to just abandon him there for another hour. “I need to stand behind you.”  
  
Sherlock used his heels to wriggle forward leaving space behind wide enough for Mycroft to step in. Mycroft planted his feet apart and was about to bend over, when he realised Sherlock had perspired and Mycroft _was_ rather fond of his new suit. Sherlock was naked from the waist up. There was a whiff of dampness coming from him; it smelt clean, yet there was also that faintest trace of the odour healthy skin exuded, mingled with Sherlock’s own stamp of masculine, refined scent.  
  
“Any time today,” Sherlock rumbled from the vicinity of Mycroft’s belly.  
  
Something somersaulted in Mycroft’s chest; something long-hidden but never forgotten, treasured and impossibly fond. Swept away by it, he stared at the top of Sherlock’s head and it felt like gazing into the bottom of a well at midnight. Then light appeared from the blackness as Sherlock twisted and turned his face up to Mycroft, pale features glowing. His eyes fell on Mycroft’s face and their dry scowl dissolved. Their blue-green captured every particle of light in the room just as Sherlock’s gaze captured Mycroft’s, diffident but refusing to let go.  
  
They watched each other in silence, a whole new meaning to the expression ‘suspended in time’ adding to their shared Holmesian Thesaurus.  
  
“Get me up on my feet,” Sherlock instructed Mycroft quietly.  
  
Mycroft slid his lower arms under Sherlock’s armpits, offering them to serve like two strong wooden beams. In a second Sherlock’s lithe body was up, turning gracefully around on its ascent, to end up pressed front to front with Mycroft. Mycroft’s brain commanded him to step back just as another command was issued to stay put and support his brother so as not to lose his balance.  
  
Their faces were too close for Mycroft to see what was there on Sherlock’s. He would have failed to read it anyway, he knew that, like he had failed to read it back then. Except that he hadn’t, he was suddenly able to see. He’d understood it too well, just not in the way his mind knew how to understand things; not in the way it could have coped. Now his body had joined the circus, too, its awareness unflappable and eager. Back on that summer afternoon Mycroft had worn a thin shirt and a light pair of beige cotton trousers. Now clad in dark layers that were five times the weight of those memorable garments, he felt as if he was standing naked not in a shady basement but back on that hill, its single big tree a miniature replica compared to the tower that was Mycroft’s exposure.  
  
His jaw clenched and he made an involuntary step back. Sherlock tried to follow him, wrists and hands awkwardly immobile, his body ending up flush against Mycroft’s again.  
  
“Sherlock,” Mycroft whispered, the warning in his voice losing itself in the curls by Sherlock’s temple. His brother said nothing, just breathed against Mycroft’s chest, quiet, beautifully existing and _him_ : impossible to conquer, deny or eradicate, impossible not to love.  
  
Mycroft embraced him, left arm around his waist, right hand burying in the strands at the back of his head. He pulled away and kissed Sherlock on the mouth. Only one rich, wet press of closed lips, their second flex already opening Sherlock’s and diving in to take fully and deeply—half a lifetime of the gradual steps in-between noted only for their absence. How could Mycroft go through them now, how could he wait? He pulled his brother closer still and savoured his mouth, a downpour of desire and understanding weighing him down, slowly crushing him until all Mycroft could feel was the pull to fall down on his knees.  
  
Sherlock kissed back, breathless and soundless, a wounded rag doll that still pressed against Mycroft with blind, bashful determination. Mycroft was caught in a whirlwind of need that smothered him and in a flash made him crave to smother, because nothing else would do, nothing would be _enough_. He tried to hold tighter, drag closer, enclose deeper—  
  
Sherlock’s lips detached from his and he shifted in Mycroft’s arms in the onset of a struggle.  
  
Mycroft let him go at once.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional A/N: queenstardust's art has left such an impression on me that once again I found my mind going to it while writing the Holmes brothers. The big tree on top of the hill had already made a proper appearance in my story 'Of Glass', but now it seems it's become part of my head!canon for the boys childhood. You can see the lovely drawing that inspired said head!canon [over here](http://queenstardust.livejournal.com/16254.html). Queenstardust doesn't update her LJ anymore, but all of her brilliant, highly original art can be found [on her Tumblr](http://queenstardust.tumblr.com/).


End file.
